Customer's New Voice: Extreme Relevancy and Experience through Volunteered Customer Information

CHAPTER 11 Future Consumer Data Ecosystem

Personal data is being transformed from personal exhaust to personal asset and as a result is garnering more respect from its source—the individual. The realization that an individual’s personal information has value and utility to the individual will catalyze a redefinition of how it is managed and monetized, and the very nature of its sovereignty. It will remap the underlying structure of how business is conducted with customers, and consumers being the direct source of enterprise and business intelligence.

Consumer as Information Stakeholder

The new personal data industry with the individual as the stakeholder and epicenter is an active, fledgling industry in this decade. This industry’s premise is that individuals are the initiators of commercial interactions powered by their irreplaceable knowledge of actual buying intent. This industry’s approach is much closer to what individuals actually want and need than its traditional industry counterparts. This is due to the fact that it does not carry the baggage of the legacy approaches that the current industry carries. The opportunities and the challenges are significant. The new personal data industry is addressing the full gamut of top challenges: technical (interoperability, device, server, cloud data), legal, social, usability, and business model transformation.

One of the central technological issues is implementing open standards for the new personal data industry. Another key ...